The author of the Thurber Prize finalist I Was Told There'd Be Cake as well as a columnist for London's Independent and a regular contributor to NPR, Sloane Crosley here tours the year's best travel writing. Maureen Dowd gives us "A Girl's Guide to Saudi Arabia"; Téa Obreht returns to her Balkan homeland in "Twilight of the Vampires"; Annie Proulx describes her encounter with eagles and other birds at her ranch in "A Year of Birds"; and William Vollmann visits the non-country of Kurdistan in "A Head for the Emir." Since its inception in 1915, the Best American series has become the premier annual showcase for the country's finest short fiction and nonfiction. For this title, as for each of the others, a series editor reviews hundreds of periodicals, then selects between 50 and 100 outstanding works. The guest editor—a recognized expert in the field—then pares the list down to the 20 or so very best pieces.